Purgatorio (76 page)

26.
   Our northern hemisphere is “widowed,” deprived of the sight of these stars, because, as Chiavacci Leonardi suggests in her commentary (Chia.1994.1), it is like the “widowed” Jerusalem of Jeremiah (Ier. 1:1), separated permanently from its original condition of unalloyed goodness (the condition, we may sometimes forget, that preceded that of original sin). Those who argue that our “widowhood” signifies that we know no goodness are defeated by the fact that some humans are indeed virtuous. What we have lost is more primitive and total than acquired virtue: absolute innocence.
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29–30.
   Dante looks north now, where the Big Dipper (“the Wain”) is not seeable, given the fact that it is above the equator.
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31.
   The solitary figure of Cato is never named in the two cantos in which he appears (he was, however, referred to by name in
Inf
. XIV.15). Emerging details make his identity unmistakable. It would seem that Dante was fully aware of the puzzlement and outrage his salvation of Cato would cause; he thus apparently chose to leave the detective work to us, forcing us to acknowledge, from the details that he presents, that this is indeed the soul of Cato of Utica (95–46
b
.
c
.), saved despite his suicide and his opposition to Julius Caesar, a sin in the last canto that damned Brutus and Cassius to the lowest zone of hell. (On this problem see Pasquazi [Pasq.1965.1], pp. 529–33.)

“Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis, great-grandson of Cato the Censor, born
b
.
c
. 95; brought up as a devoted adherent of the Stoic school, he became conspicuous for his rigid morality. On the outbreak of the civil war in 49 he sided with Pompey; after the battle of Pharsalia he joined Metellus Scipio in Africa; when the latter was defeated at Thapsus, and all of Africa, with the exception of Utica, submitted to Caesar, he resolved to die rather than fall into Caesar’s hands; he therefore put to an end his own life, after spending the greater part of the night in reading Plato’s
Phaedo
on the immortality of the soul,
B
.
C
. 46”
(T).

It is vital to understand that no one other than Dante was of the opinion that Cato was saved. And that he is so to be construed escapes most early (and many later) commentators, who balk at this simple but offending notion and thus attempt to deal with Cato as an abstract quality rather than as a historical figure. Pietro di Dante’s gloss (1340) to vv. 85–90 is one of the few places in which one may find a clear statement of the better view: Christ harrowed Cato from hell along with the faithful Hebrews; the Holy Spirit inspired Cato to believe in Christ to come and to seek absolution for his sins—or so Dante would like us to believe.
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32–33.
   Such strongly worded phrases of praise indicate the strength (and striking strangeness) of Dante’s personal sense of identity with Cato. For some of his previous and later enthusiastic encomia of Cato the Younger see
Conv
. IV.xxviii.13–19 and
Mon
. II.v.15–17. And for the possibility that Dante saw in Virgil’s line describing Cato, which appears in the description of the shield of Aeneas at
Aen
. VIII.670, his own name coupled with Cato’s, see Hollander (Holl.1969.1), pp. 128–29: “his
dante
m iura
Catone
m” ([italics added] and Cato giving them the laws).
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34–36.
   According to Lucan (
Phars
. II.372–376), Cato, sickened with sadness by the Caesar-inspired civil war in Rome, let his hair and beard grow untrimmed as a sign of grief. While he was only in his forties when he fought for the republican cause, Dante chooses to emphasize his age. However, and as Singleton says in his comment to verse 31, “it should be remembered that for Dante
la senettute
(old age) begins at forty-six (
Conv
. IV.xxiv.4).”

For the resemblances to Moses in Dante’s portrait of Cato see Hollander (Holl.1969.1), pp. 124–26, and Carol Kaske (Kask.1971.1), pp. 2–3, 12–15.
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37–39.
   The general sense is clear: Cato’s face is shining with light. Is this true because the four stars irradiate his face as though they were a sun shining upon him (the more usual interpretation), or is Dante saying that it was as though, in the brightness of Cato’s face, the sun were shining before
him
? In our translation we have allowed the majority view, aware that the truncated grammatical logic of the line invites completion with “Cato” rather than “myself.” However, we remain tempted by the minority view (restated by Giannantonio [Gian.1989.1], pp. 14–15), encouraged by, among other things, the fact that Dante had described the face of Lady Philosophy in the second ode of
Convivio
(vv. 59–62) as overcoming our understanding as the sun overcomes weak sight. Since the next canto will introduce the text of the second ode from
Convivio
for our consideration, it may be worth considering the appropriateness of that image to this scene.
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40–45.
   Cato’s initial rigid and probing moral attitude may seem to indicate that he does not immediately understand the very grace that has brought him here. He reasons that Dante and Virgil, not arriving at his shores in the “normal” way (disembarking from the angel’s ship that we shall see in the next canto), may have snuck into this holy land. He intuits that they have come up from the stream (the eventual course of Lethe?) that descends into hell (see
Inf
. XXXIV.129–132) and is eager to know how they could have done so without a very special grace indeed. Nonetheless, in a manner totally unlike that encountered in the demons of Inferno, he at once allows for the possibility of grace. His second tercet immediately reveals what a different place we have now reached, one in which doubt and possibility exist even in the minds of its sternest keepers.
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46–48.
   His second set of questions maintains a similar balance: “Are you here because some newfangled ordinance of hell permits it, or has Heaven decreed a new law, permitting such unusual travel, that has been superimposed upon the New Law made by Christ?” That he refers to the cliffs of purgatory as his own shows that he is the keeper of the whole mountain, not just of its shore, a matter that used to cause debate.
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49–51.
   Cato’s queries finally bring Virgil into the conversation. It is probably significant that the opening splendors of this Christian realm have been presented for Dante’s sake alone. Only now does Virgil resume his role as guide.

The “signs”
(cenni)
with which he encourages his charge are probably facial gestures.
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52–54.
   Virgil’s response echoes Dante’s to Cavalcante de’ Cavalcanti (
Inf.
X.61): “Da me stesso non vegno” (I come not on my own). There Dante reveals his debt to Virgil; here Virgil owns his subservience to Beatrice.
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58–60.
   Virgil’s insistence on Dante’s near-death condition at the outset of the poem may remind us of the possible connection between that condition and suicide (see note to
Inferno
XIII.24). The reflections of
Inferno
I and XIII in this canto, presided over by the “good” suicide, Cato, may produce an overtone of this concern.

Virgil’s ascription of Dante’s proximity to death to his
follia
may also remind the reader of Ulysses’
folle volo
(
Inf
. XXVI.125—the last text in which we have seen the word in its adjectival or nominal form). The younger Dante may have attempted to exercise options that he now regards as self-destructive. Cantos I, XIII, XXVI, and XXXIV of
Inferno
are perhaps those most present from that
cantica
in the verses of this opening canto of
Purgatorio
.
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66.
   That all the souls on the mountain are seen as being in Cato’s charge makes it close to impossible to assign him a partial role, as do even some commentators who treat him as historical and not an allegory, one in which he has authority only over the entrance at the shore or over that and the “vestibule” (ante-purgatory). He seems rather to be the guardian, appointed by God, of the entire mountain.
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68.
   The “power” that leads Virgil from above was apparent to him when he first saw Beatrice in Limbo and she was “donna di virtù” (
Inf
. II.76).
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71–74.
   Virgil’s phrasing, which makes freedom
(libertà)
the key word connecting Dante and Cato, may also remind the reader of Christ, who gave His life for our freedom. For perhaps the first substantial understanding that there are significant figural relations between Christ and Cato see Raimondi (Raim.1962.1), pp. 78–83; for the compelling further notion that Dante would have seen confirmation of exactly such a reading in the text of Lucan itself, see Raimondi (Raim.1962.1, p. 80, and Raim.1967.2, p. 21) highlighting Cato’s words (
Phars
. II.312): “Hic redimat sanguis populos” (and let my blood ransom the people). Barberi Squarotti eventually summarized this view as follows: “Cato, finally, comes to take on the function of a lay
figura
of Christ” (Barb.1984.1), p. 33. See also, in this vein, Wetherbee (Weth.1984.1), p. 135.
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75.
   This line is so clear in its prediction of Cato’s eventual salvation, when he will receive his glorified body in the general resurrection of the just that will follow the Last Judgment, that one has difficulty accepting Pasquazi’s claim that the issue of Cato’s salvation is left unresolved (Pasq.1965.1, p. 534). Pasquazi is closer to the mark than Andreoli, who, in his commentary (1856) to this verse, simply denies the possibility that Cato could be saved, arguing that Dante provides no grounds by which we might accept such a view. This is but another example of how the force of Dante’s daring treatment of Cato has escaped his readers.
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77.
   Virgil’s self-serving reference to the fact that he was not an active sinner temporarily hides the further fact that he is damned.
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78–84.
   Virgil’s attempt at
captatio benevolentiae
(the winning of an audience’s goodwill) probably sounds reasonable enough to most readers. Since he dwells in Limbo with Marcia, Cato’s wife, he seeks to sway him with reference to her. Virgil has learned, we might reflect, how
captatio
functions in a Christian context from Beatrice, who practiced it upon him (
Inf.
II.58–60, II.73–74). If such rhetoric worked on him, he would seem to have surmised, perhaps it will now be effective with Cato. However, and as Di Benedetto (DiBe.1985.1), p. 175, has noted, “the mention of Marcia was something of a
gaffe.
”
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85–93.
   Cato’s rebuke of Virgil is gentle but firm: (1) Marcia pleased me well enough when I was mortal, but after I was harrowed from Limbo by Christ (the maker of the “New Law”), pity for the damned was no longer possible for me; (2) Beatrice’s having interceded for you is all that is required—there is no need for flattery. Cato, unlike Orpheus, will not look back for his dead wife. He would seem rather to have Christ’s words in mind: “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven” (Matthew 22:30), a passage Dante cites later in this
cantica
(
Purg
. XIX.137).

Cato’s characterization of Virgil’s words as
lusinghe
(flatteries) is harsh, but justified by Virgil’s error. The name that would have worked (and still does) is Beatrice’s, not Marcia’s. Virgil has relied upon the power of the spiritually dead when he should have appealed to that of the saved.
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94–99.
   Turning from his admonition (which would have seemed gratuitous had the author not wanted to call Virgil’s sense of the situation into question), Cato now orders the Roman poet to gird Dante’s loins with a symbol of humility. Pietro di Dante (commentary to vv. 134–136) refers to the sixth chapter of Matthew (he means Micah 6:14): “humiliatio tua in medio tui” (your casting down shall be in your midst), what Singleton’s comment to verse 95 calls the
cingulum humilitatis
(cincture of humility). Dante’s confirmation in humility must be joined with his purification (the cleansing of his face) so that he be pure in sight when he stands before the “admitting angel” at the gate of purgatory in Canto IX.

The
giunco schietto
(verse 95), the rush with which Virgil is ordered to bind his pupil, is, as Tommaseo (1837) was perhaps the first to suggest (in his commentary to vv. 94–96), meant to echo positively the horrible vegetation of the forest of the suicides (
Inf
. XIII.5), described as having branches that are
not
straight (“non rami schietti”), but contorted.
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